The Empyrean Bastion
by jellybeansprout
Summary: AU. A cursed God resides in a crumbling palace with his servants and guards. Two explorers, out to find their next paycheck, are hired to discover the secrets of the castle, even when such secrets were lost with time for a reason. SLASH. 482751.


Just a note. I mention a bunch of wildlife and such in here. I have no idea what I'm talking about, or how that stuff would really mix together. Pretend that this is a magical place where what I say happens can happen because my twenty minutes of Googling didn't give me any real hint how this could work out.

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**The Empyrean Bastion** by _ficklepickles_

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Chapter One: Of Local Legends and Flora

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In some distant land, an old castle stood silent, overlooking a quiet rural village. The rustic town was situated at the base of a mountainous path, and had once prospered as a rest stop for tradesmen who traversed it. However, those days had long since passed with the coming of new technology. The village faded from memory and was barely a speck on modern maps.

Isolated, the village receded in on itself. The sprawling mecca of pastoral countryside that was their home at the feet of the mountains suddenly tightened into a cluster of homes and small fields. Large expanses of farmland turned wild from neglect, and the fiercer of beasts made their nests ever closer with each passing season.

Death was a near constant visitor for them, claiming young and old alike. Weather, plague, and a lack of new blood stunted their already diminished population. The able-bodied and strong remained behind and bred, but it was not enough. For a village as small and quiet as theirs, their growth was far too slow. Eventually they fell into a dark age and never made it out.

In such a time and place, their town was rife with stories. With little else to nourish their tired bones, tales flourished. There were no crowds of rambunctious children to entertain, nor young ears to lecture. The stories turned to superstitions instead. The elderly grew increasingly fonder of warnings and curses, and over time, turned into believers of their own home-spun tales.

Old gods were forgotten in favor of new ghosts with origins in ancient times. In the case of the strange crumbling castle that rose high above them from a cliffside, a different story was told.

For as long as anyone could remember, the castle had always been there. Once it had stood strong and proud, a monolithic stone guardian. Now, it had decayed into a bent a twisted shape. Under moonlight, it perched on the mountains as a massive gargoyle, inspiring more fear than protection.

During the winter seasons, the elderly would whisper amongst themselves about the castle on Gepetto's Peak. It was thusly named from an old legend that was passed on from generation to generation.

The story went that there had once been a man who carved clocks. He was called Gepetto and was a skilled craftsman who had made a name for himself in village his shop resided in. The wooden clocks he made were little marvels, each with intricately moving pieces that sung or chirped. There was one that had tiny toy soldiers marched out at every hour. Another had an array of ballerinas who would dance at the chime.

One day, a stranger passing through town had entered his shop. He had no money with which to purchase a clock, but desired on just the same. For a clock of pine fashioned into the shape of an owl, he traded a single piece of wood.

The wood was a fine one, and under Gepetto's experienced eye, he knew he could craft excellent wares from it. However, when he set it upon his table to carve, a voice unexpectedly called out.

"Hey!"

Surprised, Gepetto went about to search for the source of the voice, but found nothing. So, he once more lifted his chisel.

"Hey!" The voice cried again.

This time Gepetto had heard it clearly, and couldn't believe where he thought it was coming from. The _wood_ couldn't possibly be talking. It was just a log. Even still, he ran his hands across its surface appraisingly.

"That tickles." The voice said.

Gepetto stared. "You are cursed?" He asked after a moment.

"Yes," the log replied. "I was a boy once, but a sorceress cursed me."

"Why?" The woodcarver wondered, cautious. It was not his concern to mettle in the affairs of things magical or cursed.

"I tore up her garden, and she turned me into a tree as punishment. Then a woodsman chopped me down and sold my wood. I'm all that's left." The log said sadly.

Feeling pity for the boy, the craftsman made his decision. "Then I will give you a body." He said and set about to carve the log in the shape of a young boy. As he was wood, he would be but a puppet, but at least his shape would resemble that of a human's.

The man slaved away night and day to carve the boy's body. All the while, they talked to one another, the craftsman telling the boy stories, and the child reciprocating in the way only another living voice could. The man, who had never once felt lonely, realized how very much he enjoyed the company of someone else, and began to think of the boy as a son.

As he carved, he told the boy about the local legends, especially about the tallest mountain that resided in the neighboring range. "There is a path that only the plants and animals know that leads to the very peak of that high up mountain," he said. "On that peak lies a castle that no man has seen for hundreds of years, and that is the way it should remain," he warned.

"In that castle lives a fallen god, disgraced and evil. He was cast from the heavens for committing a great sin, and he and all of his servants were sent to earth in their castle, forever bound to it."

Out of all of the wood carver's stories, that one was the boy's very favorite.

"How did he fall to earth?" The boy questioned.

The man smiled as he carved. "A great storm came one night, thick clouds hiding all light. Only rain and darkness could be seen. Then the skies lit up and a gaping hole opened within the clouds. Through it a great castle fell, crashing into the highest mountain and remaining there until the end of time itself. Trapped within is the cursed god and his servants, unable to leave for so great was their sin."

"What sin did the god commit?" The boy asked.

"No one knows." The craftsman replied.

"When I have legs, then I'll go ask him." The boy said resolutely.

"You mustn't." The man warned. "The mountains are perilous, and there are some things that aren't meant to be disturbed."

The boy shrugged off the warning. "Then make my body strong enough to make the trip." The boy said.

"Only the forests and the animals know the path." The man cautioned.

"I will find it." The boy said confidently.

The man smiled, thinking it childish folly. There was no path to the castle that could be traversed by man. Many brave young men had tried in the past. Most had returned empty handed. A few of the more foolhardy had not returned at all.

However, as soon as the man had carved a set of fine and sturdy legs for the boy, the puppet was up and running out the door without a glance behind him. After all, a mischievous boy would remain one until properly punished. The man had been to kind to him, and the boy had yet to learn his lesson. As a tree, he had stolen the nuts from squirrels and thrown them at anything that had passed by, be it bird or rabbit or child.

He had menaced the children, terrifying them by making spooky sounds at night that would surely be heard in the village. He lied to travelers who had asked him directions, sending them along the wrong path making them hopelessly lost. At long last a woodsman had been sent to cut him down, believing him to be a wicked tree. His wood had been passed from tradesman to tradesman, for none wanted anything to do with cursed wood, until at last he had been traded to this town to the kindly craftsman.

The selfish and naughty child hadn't a thought of thanks to repay the man for his kindness. He ran forward, with only the thoughts of the castle in his hollow wooden head.

The wood carver chased after him, calling for the boy to return, but the carver's skill was too true, and the puppet was too cleverly made. The wooden body was swift and easily outran the man.

Before he knew it, the puppet boy was already clambering the rocks of the mountain and disappeared from sight.

The man searched for the boy, convinced that he could not have traveled too far. The trade roads were the only real paths on the mountains, and he was sure that the boy would certainly mistake them for the castle's trail. But search as he might, he found no trace of the boy.

What he had not known was the during the time the boy had spent as a tree, he had learned the language of trees. As he ran through the forest, he questioned them on the way, seeking the path to the cursed castle.

Few of the younger trees knew of which he spoke, but the wooden boy found that the deeper he went the more knowledgeable trees became. Finally, in a place that had tested the limits of his cursed form, he met with a special tree.

The tree was old and bent, a huge coil of massive trunk and taller than all the rest had it stood straight. It had lived for ages, untouched by man, and surrounded by a forest of ancients like itself. However, it was different from the rest, a foreign seedling that had been uprooted when it was still an infant and sent tumbling down from the mountain top where it had sprouted. The place he had stumbled into was a sacred forest where the trees were old and wise, and as close to nature as the boy had ever seen. Under his hands, he felt their bark and could sense the very thrum of life. Their manner of speaking was old and slow, and of a dialect the boy had never heard.

But they knew the answer to his question, and while the wooden puppet waited impatiently, the primordial tree spoke.

When the tree was just a sprout, a great storm had brewed. The tree was a young seedling, and its roots ran shallow. Even still, it gripped the earth and stone beneath it as tightly as it could, lending its thin and flexible body to bend with the wind as all spouts should. The tree would weather the storm, or risk being uprooted and dying slowly of starvation.

However, that storm was different than the ones that had come before it. Though young, the seedling knew to listen to the whispers of its elders.

The older and stronger trees that could not bend, risked breaking, and their leaves shook with worry. The storm was different, they muttered. The wind is too sharp, their branches said. The air is too hot, their bark shuddered. The ground is too cold, the tree roots writhed.

Suddenly there was a great crack from above, and monster descended. It was a massive bird that the forest had never before seen. It was craggy black, but burned with light. It crashed into the mountain peak and crushed many of the trees. The young sprout itself was sent rolling from its perch. The hard stones of the mountain side stripped the seedling of its tender leaves and shattered almost all of its slender branches.

By the time the young sprout had come to a stop in a cold and deserted place, it was almost nothing but a mere stick laying on its side. But it was a hardy plant, and the tree stretched its roots to the fullest. Days passed and the tree had begun to harden with dryness and wither, yet still it stretched. Finally, a wisp thin root had touched moist ground. The seedling dug in deep, and it had remained there ever since.

"But where was the castle?" The boy asked with impatience at the end of the tale. The tree had still to answer his most important question.

The tree swayed and beneath the wooden feet of the puppet boy, he felt it.

The tree had remembered every drop, tumble, and roll it had experienced on its long fall from the mountain top. A pathway was lit up with the tree's special spirit that would lead the boy to where the tree had been born.

There, the puppet would find the castle.

Excited, the boy began his climb, his wooden joints creaking with every step he took. Just like with the woodcarver, he did not once look back.

The tree swayed again, as if returning to sleep. The affairs of humans, gods, and strange wooden creatures were of little matter to it. The tree was old, but it had been touched by a heavenly power. It would live until that which had fallen was destroyed. It shivered.

A storm was brewing.

The trail the sprout had left behind was a difficult one to follow. However, the puppet travelled undaunted. Many times he fell, scraped his limbs, and at one point cracked an arm, but his wooden body felt none of it. He moved tirelessly without worry for food or shelter. It took days for his tiny self to traverse the steep mountain sides. All the while, he spared not a thought for the wood carver who had given him his body, nor the old tree that had imparted him the knowledge of how to get to the castle.

Even then, the craftsman had searched high and low for the ungrateful boy. Gepetto was a very kind man at heart, and worry gnawed at him for his recklessness at feeding such an impressionable boy that tale.

After several days and nights of searching with no sign of the lost boy, Gepetto regretfully turned back. From his home, he stared up at the castle that cast such a twisted shadow across their town. Silently, he cursed himself of his foolishness. They were nothing but old wives' tales. There were no gods or demons that lived up there.

That night, he dreamed of a strange stick. It was a gnarled bit of tree branch with blackened bark. It floated above a glowing trail of leaves and straight toward the door of a massive castle. Gepetto had never seen the castle up close before, but he knew that the ornate door belonged to the cliffside castle. The doors were beautifully cut and painted. They were decorated in a gilded paint that glowed. Words that could be read by no man had been meticulously carved in intricate patterns swirling across its surface. Looking carefully, Gepetto could see them moving, simply sliding over the painted doors in a slow and steady pace.

For all of its beauty, the stick saw none of it. It flew right up to the door and began to beat on it.

"No!" Gepetto cried out in his sleep, his fingers reaching out for something that wasn't there.

The stick, whether real or not, was deaf to his pleas. It continued to rain blows on the beautiful door with its darkened knotted self. A growing apprehension had lodged itself in Gepetto's throat. His protests had only manifested themselves as a choked "stop" that went unheard. He feared something, not sure of what it was, but if the stick continued as it was, he knew something terrible would happen.

Helpless, the wood carver watched as the stick repeatedly smacked itself across the doors. Sometimes it was only a glancing blow that would skitter across the surface. More often, it landed with a heavy hollow sound on the solid planks, like some great beast's knocking.

It was only a matter of time before that foolish stick disturbed _something_.

That time was not long in coming. The ground began to rumble. At first, Gepetto thought it was just an earthquake, but the stick recoiled, clattering to the stone floor as if all the life had drained out of it.

Other than trembling along the shaking floor, the stick didn't move again.

The castle was another story.

The words that had been so carefully carved into the door began to shine. The gentle motion of the foreign phrases sped up, darting about door like shimmering fish just beneath the water's surface. For a moment, Gepetto could not believe what he was witnessing, but the castle itself was moving. The tall stone towers were changing. Parts of it bent and grew, new pillars slamming into the ground. Loosened earth fell from the sky as embedded stones lifted upward.

The castle transformed into the shape of some kind of beast, one that could the craftsman could not recognize. It wasn't complete yet, though. Like a roughly hewn carving, only a faint outline could be made. As if frustrated with its lack of form, the titanic castle beast roared. Clouds swam above it, thickening into the beginnings of a raging storm that any local could clearly read.

It meant to buckle the hatches, secure the windows, and hope that the roof was nailed on tight enough as they would pray to have enough supplies to wait it out.

Huge stone feet paced in a circle as the monstrous castle saw that there was no higher it could climb. The castle was trying to return to Heaven, Gepetto realized. From the beast's broad back, two stumps had grown, but it didn't have enough power or material to become fully formed.

Wings!

The beast was missing its wings, and thus could not return.

The castle's anger was fed into the seething red storm. The clouds had turned a dark purple and were broken with sharp lances of acid green lightning. It was unlike anything Gepetto had ever seen, or ever would again. The rain that poured from those toxic looking clouds was a vibrant blue in color, lit with some mysterious energy from within each drop.

The cursed God had been awakened. Gepetto knew it then.

A crash awoke him suddenly. Freed from the horrific dream, the carver sat up with some relief. It was short-lived however, as he saw from his windows his nightmare brought to life.

The storm was real. The castle was moving. Gepetto sank to his bed, mortified. It was his fault, he realized. That stick had no doubt been the puppet he had created and given human form. Whatever happened to it, the castle must have used his soul to awaken the God, and now it wanted to return.

Fear sank deep into the craftsman's belly, knowing of his sin. He looked out through his windows, and despaired at what would happen to them now.

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"So, that's why this is called Gepetto's Peak? Because some wood carver made a magical puppet and summoned the apocalypse with it?" Spanner looked skeptically at his partner, who was tromping through the woods with about as much grace as someone could expect from a library-reclusive bookworm.

"No, that's what the native legends say. If you want to have any hope of locating this place at all, you might want to brush up with the local stories!" Irie berated, tapping on his notebook.

"Look! I have all sorts of notes written here. The twisted tree that was mentioned was most likely an oak. If we go with the idea that it had left a 'trail' than the obvious conclusion was that it had dropped nuts. The trail we're looking for is a line of oak trees. They'll be our markers since they'd be the foreign trees in the forest of sequoias."

"Yes. That bush you're standing in is poison oak, by the way." Spanner said blandly.

With a yelp, the auburn haired man stumbled away from the greenery he had freshly trampled beneath his boots.

The blonde shook his head. "You might as well 'brush up' on the indigenous flora and fauna while you're at it." He shifted his pack and kept moving. "Your oak trail is up this way. Buncha nuts didn't fall down a cliff to make it easy for us."

"Hey! Wait up!" Irei scrambled after him.

The blonde continued, marching a steady pace ahead. "Can't slow down or else we won't make it by nightfall."

"What? You actually want to get there _today_?" The scholar screeched.

"Yeah, that was the point, wasn't it?" The trailblazer shifted a lollipop lazily from one side of his mouth to the other. He canted a gaze at his companion that asked 'why not'?

Flustered, Irie flipped through his notebook. "It says it took days to get there. Not one, but several." He pointed to something scrawled in tiny print that Spanner couldn't read.

Spanner waved a hand from the way they had just come. "It also said it took days to reach that glade over there, the one with your big twisted tree. We made it in three hours. I think we're moving faster than a little puppet, despite the little break you took."

Irie colored. He had been so elated to find the mythical clearing that he had spent an unnecessary amount of time fawning over it. The locals had been surprisingly tight-lipped about the castle on Gepetto's Peak, but they had been more than willing to share the tale of Gepetto's folly. Eagerly, he had written it down, and kept referring to it whenever he found an instance that it could possibly be related to.

Stubbornly, the scholar held on to his notebook, but followed after the blonde trailblazer. They were two men hired by the Milliefiore company to look into the castle that rested on the mountain. Whether it was for excavation, study, or possible demolishing, the two of them were sent ahead to see if there was any merit in the location at all.

Irie had been thrilled by the prospect of examining the legendary Castle of the Cursed God. Spanner, well, he was just happy to have a job. He was saving up for some new mechanical parts that were sure to cost a pretty penny.

Within a few hours, Irie had flopped tiredly on a flat rock.

"Not a bad place for a break." Spanner said idly. He dropped his pack beside his partner and rummaged through it for a pair of binoculars. Standing on a ledge, he peered out at their current location compared to where they wanted to be.

"We're about two thirds there. A little more. Not bad. We'll make it by nightfall and camp out inside." He reported.

"Great." Irie replied, pulling a canteen out from his bag. He was excited. They were close. He took a swig and replaced the canteen into his bag. "So, which way next?" He asked.

Spanner didn't respond. His gaze was fixed with whatever he was staring at with those binoculars.

"Hey? Spanner?" Irie stood, a bit worried at what had his partner so transfixed. "Spanner?" Lightly, he shook the blonde's shoulder, jerking him away from whatever had him so preoccupied.

"Irie?" He asked a bit questioningly.

"Yeah. What were you looking at?" The scholar questioned, peering at him.

"Thought I saw someone up there." Spanner pointed. "Tall guy, wearing some outdated clothing."

"Really? May I?"

Spanner handed over the binoculars and directed Shouichi at the place he had been staring at.

The scholar scanned around for a bit. "Hm... I don't see anyone."

"Must've been my imagination." Spanner said distractedly. "Come on. We should get moving if we want to make it before it's too late." He said calmly. Inwardly he was trying to shake off the feeling of disquiet he got from that...man.

"Ok." Irie was about to hand the binoculars back, when a flicker of motion caught his eye. A strange spot of grey appeared over some greenery. Refocusing the lenses, it looked like a young man dressed in clothing that would fit the times several hundred years ago. He blinked, and it was gone.

What was that...?

Shrugging, Irie stuffed the binoculars into his pack and followed after Spanner. Maybe there was some merit to the castle's curse after all.

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End Chapter One

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I'm always posting in a hurry. Figured that a month was long enough to wait before posting something. So something on ten-nine-oh nine! It's slow to start and long, but I'm practicing for NaNoWriMo. Gotta love quantity over quality sometimes.


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